I just feel like people need something to blame so bad that they come up with different reasons (like video games or TV) instead of looking for ways to help prevent tragedies like that happening again. I'm sure violent video games or TV doesn't help young kids but bad parenting doesn't help either. On top of that, how we deal with and treat our mentally ill should be taken into consideration.

100% agreed.

Something that raised my hackles a little lately was the murder of Chris Kyle in Texas. US Navy SEAL marksman. It's tragic, killed by a fellow soldier suffering from PTSD that he was trying to help... but the thing that got me was the focus on him having the highest confirmed "killcount". I'm sorry, I have a lot of respect for soldiers; but 160 confirmed bodybags, and 255 claimed kills is a terrible thing to celebrate. Enemy combatants? Yes, probably. But still humans whose lives have been snuffed out earlier than they should have been.

Not to mention the media frenzy that surrounds every act of violence with a mere whiff of the out-of-the-ordinary about it. Never mind the fact that violence is indeed decreasing, if you look at a newspaper today you'd swear that the nation was damn near warring against itself. And giving the violent and deranged the attention they so desperately crave is hardly going to deter other violent, deranged people. Not to mention the blatant misinformation the media likes to put on air. Talking about how you get highscores in GTA by killing people (hint: GTA doesn't have highscores), and saying that AR-15s are the same gun the army uses (They aren't; civilian ARs aren't select fire, nor military-spec). They thrive on producing outrage and indignation in the audience, and it's just fucking awful to watch.

Worst part is I don't really see any realistic way of getting out of this kind of situation._________________The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum

I'm sorry, I have a lot of respect for soldiers; but 160 confirmed bodybags, and 255 claimed kills is a terrible thing to celebrate. Enemy combatants? Yes, probably. But still humans whose lives have been snuffed out earlier than they should have been.

Prove this broad, sweeping generalization. You can't say you respect soldiers then immediately afterwards make this statement. You're grossly oversimplifying what the man did.

How many lives did he save in the process of eliminating hostile threats? Did none of those people really not need to die?

None of this has to do with what we've been talking about, and I don't claim to have an answer, but I think you need to be able to answer those two questions before you can start making the assertions you are making._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.https://www.facebook.com/O.A.Drake/https://twitter.com/oadrake

Yes. The jihadi who only speaks militant conversion--even if he advocates violence and murder to attain his ends--is not guilty of anything worthy of death. There's a world of difference between crying out "Kill the infidel!" and actually building a bomb._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

Yes. The jihadi who only speaks militant conversion--even if he advocates violence and murder to attain his ends--is not guilty of anything worthy of death. There's a world of difference between crying out "Kill the infidel!" and actually building a bomb.

Are you of the opinion that there's a world of difference between Mohamed Atta and Osama Bin Laden in the same way?

I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. You have a lot of really poorly thought out opinions to be sure, but not feeling remorse over the deaths of the legions of suicidal nihilists eager to see the end of civilization is not one of them.

Are you of the opinion that there's a world of difference between Mohamed Atta and Osama Bin Laden in the same way?

Good Question.

Atta, obviously, died by his own hand; one can't fly a fully-fueled 747 into the side of anything and walk away unscathed. Justice becomes a moot point, in his case; regardless of how many others his actions harmed and killed, those actions precluded any possibility of a trial. So, reviled though he may be for his actions, he's never been given the due process of law to determine whether or not he deserved to die.

However, bin Laden was tried in absentia (dude didn't even want to show up at his own trial and defend himself; imagine that) in conjunction with the 1988 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, and, even prior to 9/11, was found guilty of running a criminal organization under RICO, was declared an enemy of the public and of the United States, and was placed on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list. So, bin Laden was accorded due process, chose to ignore it and to continue his criminal activities, escalating them to the infamous 9/11 attacks, and died evading pursuit. A convicted felon who dies while being a fugitive from justice is typically considered to have deserved his death.

So, in that regard, yes, there is considerable difference between the two: one was accorded his chance at justice at the hands of those he had wronged and chose to ignore that chance and to continue his wrongful actions against those same people, and the other committed his wrongful acts in a manner that precluded any possibility he could ever face or receive justice.

But neither of these criminals are really relevant to my statement

Quote:

The jihadi who only speaks militant conversion--even if he advocates violence and murder to attain his ends--is not guilty of anything worthy of death.

for both did far more than speaking of violence. Both pursued it relentlessly.

You speak of "legions of suicidal nihilists eager to see the end of civilization." Is it not possible that, among these legions, there could be those who have done no greater wrong than to listen to the deluded ramblings of their religious leaders? Who have never shot another person, never blown up another person, never even built or procured the means of doing so? Young, idealistic fanatics (somewhat like you seem to be, in fact) who've done nothing more culpable than to buy into a propaganda machine and chant its slogans? Could it not also be possible that among the jihadi as defined in the Qur'an--simply those who would fight for the expansion of Islam--there might be millions who are not included in these legions of nihilists of which you speak?_________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

You speak of "legions of suicidal nihilists eager to see the end of civilization." Is it not possible that, among these legions, there could be those who have done no greater wrong than to listen to the deluded ramblings of their religious leaders? Who have never shot another person, never blown up another person, never even built or procured the means of doing so?

In what sense would these people be engaged in global jihad? When you expressed your dismay at the 'celebration' of Chris Kyle's confirmed kill count were you at all under the impression that his targets were simply young men emerging from a Wahhabi mosque?

EDIT: uh, oops. It was fritter who was moaning about that.

bitflipper wrote:

Young, idealistic fanatics (somewhat like you seem to be, in fact) who've done nothing more culpable than to buy into a propaganda machine and chant its slogans?

What an extraordinary claim. Please expand.

bitflipper wrote:

Could it not also be possible that among the jihadi as defined in the Qur'an-- simply those who would fight for the expansion of Islam --there might be millions who are not included in these legions of nihilists of which you speak?

I don't understand this question at all. I can't think of a more concise definition of 'jihadi' than 'those who would fight for the expansion of Islam' so I suppose my answer is no. Clearly the men and women who merely tacitly yearn for the establishment of a global Islamic empire are far less dangerous than suicide bombers, but their beliefs are still sinister.

Last edited by Feiticeira on Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:26 am; edited 1 time in total

I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. You have a lot of really poorly thought out opinions to be sure, but not feeling remorse over the deaths of the legions of suicidal nihilists eager to see the end of civilization is not one of them.

Your past track record of being sarcastic and snarky in a good majority of your posts.

Also, you're not not trying to look at what a sniper does or why they do it. A large part of military combat comes down to mitigating loses i.e. if we eliminate X targets we can prevent the deaths of Y soldiers and civilians. Ideally, Y is a much larger number than X, and includes loses on both sides._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.https://www.facebook.com/O.A.Drake/https://twitter.com/oadrake

Classically, the imams have maintained that those who prostelytize for Islam and those who carry out missionary work in the name of Allah are jihadi. And these folks are no more offensive nor more wrong-headed than Christians doing good works and trying to spread their own version of the good news. (No less so, either, for that matter, but let's look at the good both camps are doing, for once.)

Feiticeira wrote:

When you expressed your dismay at the 'celebration' of Chris Kyle's confirmed kill count were you at all under the impression that his targets were simply young men emerging from a Wahhabi mosque?

I believe you're confusing me with fritterdonut; I've had nothing to say about Chris Kyle, one way or the other.

Feiticeira wrote:

bitflipper wrote:

Young, idealistic fanatics (somewhat like you seem to be, in fact) who've done nothing more culpable than to buy into a propaganda machine and chant its slogans?

What an extraordinary claim. Please expand.

Your statements asking if it could ever be too soon to kill a jihadi, equating all jihadi with suicidal nihilists bent on the destruction of civilization, and stating that even those who may only tacitly yearn for Islamic expansion are sinister in their beliefs, are all exemplary of an idealism that characterizes youth and which we gradually lose as experience teaches us to be leery of generalizations. As such, you do indeed seem to me to be an idealistic young man who still burns with the unbridled fire of his passions, instead of being a jaded and cynical old fart like me. But, don't worry; you'll get there, in time. _________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

Classically, the imams have maintained that those who prostelytize for Islam and those who carry out missionary work in the name of Allah are jihadi. And these folks are no more offensive nor more wrong-headed than Christians doing good works and trying to spread their own version of the good news.

This is just obscurantism. You can call it jihad, Salafi jihad, Islamic extremism, whatever. But let's not be obtuse. This is not the Salvation Army. It is, however, semantic bullshit. You know exactly what I mean by jihad and jihadis, and it's not fucking Mormonism.

bitflipper wrote:

Your statements asking if it could ever be too soon to kill a jihadi, equating all jihadi with suicidal nihilists bent on the destruction of civilization, and stating that even those who may only tacitly yearn for Islamic expansion are sinister in their beliefs, are all exemplary of an idealism that characterizes youth and which we gradually lose as experience teaches us to be leery of generalizations. As such, you do indeed seem to me to be an idealistic young man who still burns with the unbridled fire of his passions, instead of being a jaded and cynical old fart like me. But, don't worry; you'll get there, in time.

That's a remarkable level of condescension from someone who is stone cold wrong. It is in no way indicative of naive idealism to be deeply concerned by people who profess their desire to see the return of the caliphate. It is not a generalisation to say that the ideology of such people is a sinister one. It is sinister, and your suggestion that my opposition to totalitarian theocracy is an equivalent state of fanaticism as the men and women who glorify suicide-murder and the destruction of the West is utterly stupid.